Cosmology and fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman antiquity
Subtitle: under pitiless skies
By: by Nicola Denzey Lewis
Series: Nag Hammadi and Manichaean studies -- 81
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 206
ISBN-13: 9789004245488; 9789004245761
Subjects: Religious aspects; Relations; Cosmology; Nag Hammadi codices; Christianity; Apocryphon of John; Christianity and other religions; Sophia of Jesus Christ; Tripartite tractate; Fate and fatalism; Gnosticism
Other titles: Under pitiless skies
Description: "In this book, Nicola Denzey Lewis dismisses Hans Jonas' mischaracterization of second-century Gnosticism as a philosophically-oriented religious movement built on the perception of the cosmos as negative or enslaving. A focused study on the concept of astrological fate in 'Gnostic' writings including the Apocryphon of John, the recently-discovered Gospel of Judas, Trimorphic Protennoia, and the Pistis Sophia, this book reexamines their language of 'enslavement to fate' from its origins in Greek Stoicism, its deployment by the Apostle Paul, to its later use by a variety of second-century intellectuals (both Christian and non-Christian)."--Publisher description.
Notes: Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Princeton University, 1998.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-202) and index.
Table of contents: title: Were the Gnostics cosmic pessimists?; title: Nag Hammadi and the providential cosmos; title: This body of death : cosmic malevolence and enslavement to sin in Pauline exegesis; title: Heimarmene at Nag Hammadi : the Apocryphon of John and On the origin of the world; title: Middle Platonism, heimarmene, and the Corpus Hermeticum; title: Ways out I : interventions of the savior god; title: Ways out II : baptism and cosmic freedom : a new genesis; title: Astral determinism in the Gospel of Judas; title: Conclusions, and a new way forward.